March 18, 2008

March 23, 2008 - Easter Sunday

Easter is a strange day in the life of the church. On one hand, it is the day that the church
stands up and makes the most audacious, stupefying, counter-cultural and
ridiculous claim of its entire history, the very claim on which it lays it
foundation of being: “He is Risen! He
is Risen indeed!”

And yet, while the world watches us with puzzlement and
confusion, the church gathers to celebrate the Resurrection with an almost
nonchalant malaise. We show up in our
suits and Easter dresses, we sing the great Easter hymns like “Christ the Lord
is Risen Today” or “The Day of Resurrection,” we read the Gospel stories, we
hear the Easter sermon, then we go home for what is often the real event:
Easter dinner.

Now, I know that this isn’t the case for everyone. Many Christians who come to church on Easter
are sincere, really do come to celebrate this highest of holy days of the
Christian faith. But in a lot of ways
we’re numb to its mystery, its power; part of the reason we celebrate is
because we supposed to celebrate on Easter. But the reality is that we know the story, we know the ending,
and so we know what to expect when we walk through the doors on Easter morning.

This wasn’t the case that first Easter. The reality is, not one of Jesus’ disciples
or followers expected this. Not
Peter. Not Andrew. Not James or John or Matthew or any of the
others. And especially not Mary
Magdalene and the other women who went to the tomb the morning following the
Sabbath.

People have tried to explain what happened to these
followers after Jesus’ crucifixion. Mass hallucination. Altered
states of consciousness experiences. They made it up. We do not have
scientific proof, a security video or photograph, that denies or verifies what
these followers claim they experienced in the days and weeks following Jesus’
death at the hands of Pontius Pilate and the Temple authorities: that when
these women showed up that Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away and there
was no body, just the linens in which it had been wrapped. They spoke of a messenger of some sort, and
an experience with the risen Jesus.

Following that, there were other accounts: the disciples
gathered in the upper room; the disciples on the road to Emmaus; Paul records
an appearance to Peter all alone, and an otherwise unrecorded appearance to
five hundred at one time. The disciples
and followers of Jesus witnessed to a transformational experience with a
resurrection Jesus, a resurrection that they claimed proved he was the promised
Messiah and had come to turn everything on its head.

I’m not attempting to “prove” the Resurrection; but
something happened, something motivated these disparaged and downtrodden and
defeated followers of an executed Jewish leader to march out into the
Greco-Roman world proclaiming that this same leader had been raised from the
dead by the power of God. And further
they claimed that this shamed, rejected leader had become the way through which
God is reconciling us back to God’s self.

Five times in the New Testament, verse 22 from Psalm 118 is
cited as a witness to God’s work in Jesus, that the “stone the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone” (cf. Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17,
Acts 4:11, 1 Peter 2:7). And it’s easy
to see why Psalm 118 would be one that the early church would gravitate towards
to make sense of God’s new work in Jesus.

In our lection from the psalm, vv. 14-24, the petitioner
sums up what the Lord has done for them with the statement that the Lord has
become their salvation (v. 14). This is
followed by thanksgiving, the “songs of victory” and the chorus about the right
hand of the Lord, or what the Lord has done. Because of what the Lord has done, the petitioner gives praise and
confidently declares the difference between life with God versus what would
have happened except for the Lord’s actions: “I shall not die, but I shall
live, and recount the deeds of the Lord” (v. 17).

The rest of the reading can be understood as a liturgical
action. Some parts are clearly the
petitioner, while others are the response of the assembly; verses 19-21 follow
this pattern, with the petitioner asking for access to the sanctuary through
the “gates of righteousness” in order to give thanks (v. 19). The assembly then vindicates the petitioner,
affirming that they can enter (v. 20), followed by the thanksgiving that was
promised back in verse 19.

Verses 22-24 are unclear about who is speaking; verses 22-23
could be the petitioner alone, or it could be the whole assembly. Regardless, these verses are a celebration
of the Lord’s vindication of the petitioner, symbolized by the rejected stone
made into the cornerstone (v. 22). This
is interpreted as the Lord’s doing, and that this day of vindication and
victory is a day made by the Lord that the assembly is called to rejoice and be
glad in response.

For the early Christians, whose Easter experience was a
movement from defeat and despair to victory and celebration, the figure of the
rejected stone that is vindicated by the Lord is easily connected with the
resurrected Jesus, a Messiah rejected by the leaders of the world and of his
people and put to death. In his resurrection,
God vindicates Jesus and opens to him the gates of righteousness.

The early church also saw their own hope in this psalm. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the
gates of righteousness are open to us as well, and we can confess “I shall not
die, but I shall live…This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes”
(v. 17, 23).

The celebratory tone, the rejoicing in the deliverance from
death, the confidence in God’s mighty works: all of these themes and images are
appropriate for Easter, and are entry points for how we in the modern church
might recapture the passion of those first Easter experiences. Easter is not a celebration of how we escape
from this life and will go on to heaven in the next life, but that this
life is transformed through God’s mighty works in Jesus’ death and
resurrection.

The powers of this world that dominate us, sin and fear and
doubt, like the power of Rome before them, are conquered and overturned. The
power of death, which looms over all human beings and shadows all that we do,
is shattered. God, in and through Jesus, has become our salvation, our deliverance, and our hope.

Therefore, with confidence and hope, we can sing in
celebration alongside the psalmist,

Other Theological Web Resources

Recommended Reading

Thomas Cahill: How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History)Wish I had read this years ago. Fascinating book, providing insight into the life of St. Patrick, and arguing for the positive role Celtic monasticism had in preserving the history and literature of the classical world. Plus, I think that Cahill's observations about Patrick's mission to the Irish also speaks to some of the things the emergent movement is wrestling with in the contemporary church.